


our heartbeats becoming slow

by disastermovie



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, But Like. It's Worse, Canonical Character Death, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, frostyfuntime2k19
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-24 17:14:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21861520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disastermovie/pseuds/disastermovie
Summary: "You’re going to outlive me, John."(Harry is wrong.)
Relationships: John Bridgens/Harry Peglar
Comments: 7
Kudos: 39
Collections: janky franky's frosty fun time 2k19





	our heartbeats becoming slow

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day four of Janky Franky's Frosty Funtime 2k19. Today's prompt is **sweater weather** , so of course, I looked at the already tragic relationship between these two and went, "Hey, how can I make this WORSE?"
> 
> Title from "In a Week" by Hozier.

They’re still making camp, Fitzjames only just laid down in his tent, when John - taking one, two, three steps from one of the sledges - drops a box of something that sounds like shattering glass and falls to the ground. He doesn’t move. Harry drops everything, turning the tent that he and Golding had been making into a heap of cloth, and runs to him.

“John,” he says, falling to his knees beside him. Hartnell had gotten to him first, turned John on his back and tried speaking to him. Harry cups his face to try the same, but John’s eyes are cloudy in a way that scares him. “Look at me. _Look at me_ , John.”

John blinks lazily in his direction. Not at him; John doesn’t recognize Harry, right now. Harry doesn’t think that John would recognize anyone or anything. He goes to stroke his hair and his fingers come back bloody.

Hartnell is watching him closely, and Harry shuts his eyes for a moment. Breathes. “Help me lift him.”

As gentle as they try to be, John still groans as he rises from the rocks, his weight entirely supported by Harry and Hartnell as they lead him toward the newly erected sick-tent. His head lolls back, then to the side. His breath is hot on Harry’s neck as he blinks at him. Looks _at_ him. “Harry?”

“Yes, John, it’s me. I’m here.”

John smiles - a weak, tiny thing - as he whispers, “Harry…”

Harry rests his cheek on John’s forehead. His skin is cold.

* * *

Harry is warm in his sweater. John had made it for him during the long voyage apart, working during rare leisure time on _Erebus_ , and had finished it some time before they were trapped in the pack. He wasn’t able to get it to Harry until the ice made walking between the ships possible.

John was less able to leave the ships than Harry was, so it’d been Harry who’d come to him, along with a group of Terrors sent to deliver some supplies just before afternoon watch. He all but ran to John as soon as he had a spare moment and found him cleaning up in the wardroom. _Erebus_ ’ officers were busy elsewhere and John’s back was turned to him, so Harry let himself just stand in the doorway to watch. Take in his greyed hair, the bend of his spine, the gentle way he arranged the china and silverware with those calloused hands that Harry loved so much. He could easily remember John’s fingers skimming along a page, holding Harry’s hand, stroking his cheek - or down his chest…

He couldn’t take it anymore. “John.”

John spun toward him. “ _Harry_ ,” he said, voice soft. Harry took in his dear face: his curved nose, his dark brown eyes, the wrinkles on his brow. He was as handsome as he remembered.

 _How I’ve missed you, dear John_ , he’d thought, hoping that the other man might read his face like some Greek text and decipher its meaning. To know what he wanted to say out loud, but couldn’t. Not here.

John took him to his cabin. As soon as the curtain was drawn, Harry was upon him, kissing and clutching at him like a shipwrecked man dragging his way to shore. John was just as desperate; he wrapped his arms tight around Harry, pressing them chest to chest, and kissed him with an open mouth. His stubble was rough on Harry’s cheek. He thought, blearily, that it would be a nice thing if his own beard might leave scratches on John’s skin, reminders of this moment, their first time together since Beechey. Their first real kiss since they left home.

“I have something for you,” John said, once they parted. Harry was loathe to let him go, but he did so, expecting another book. He was pleasantly surprised by the lovely red sweater that John gave him instead. It was thick, the design tightly knit, and obviously made with so much love. Harry knew it would be warm.

Eventually, the bell rang for the next watch. It might as well have been a death knell to Harry. “I have to go.”

John only nodded, eyes sad, but he still smiled so sweetly as their fingers brushed. “Stay warm, my love.”

* * *

They lay John down in a cot. The captain enters, but Harry heeds him no mind as he rearranges John’s body, trying to make him comfortable. His eyes clear up a bit as he watches Harry, while Hartnell talks in hushed tones to Crozier behind him. Harry ignores it to push John’s hair back, careful of the bleeding roots. John leans into his touch.

“Mr. Bridgens,” says Crozier, now standing next to Harry. His voice is gentle. “How are you feeling?”

John’s laugh is weak. “Well as I can be, sir.”

“I’m glad, then. Rest up.” A pause, before he suddenly clamps down on Harry’s shoulder. When Harry looks at him, Crozier has fixed him with a heavy look. “Take care of him, Mr. Peglar.”

Harry looks at the captain, the way he looks him in the eyes, and recognizes what he means: _I’m sorry for your loss_.

“Of course, sir,” he says. His mouth is dry.

Crozier squeezes his shoulder once before he goes. Hartnell leaves with him, giving Harry a slow nod, before the tent flaps close behind them.

Then it’s just him, John, and the wind as it whistles through the camp.

* * *

Harry wore the sweater nearly every day. He still needed his waistcoat on top of it, even when he was inside the ship. The cold nipped at his heels everywhere he went, only getting worse as their first winter on the ice dragged on, but he was warmer than he’d been before and the sweater made John feel a little bit closer. Sometimes, on lonely nights, he pretended the warmth came from John’s arms around him.

He hasn’t taken it off since they left the ships. It’s got holes in places where he’s snagged it on things and worn it down. The red has faded to a slightly darker color, but the pattern remains, and it’s still so warm. Harry imagines a healthier John as he knitted it together, thinking about what design to put here or there, what stitches to combine to make it unique - to make it Harry’s.

He remembers hearing stories about sailors falling overboard and their bloated bodies washing ashore, the only hope of identification being their sweaters, the handiwork recognized either by a member of the crew or the wife who made it.

Distantly, he wonders, _How did you think of me, when you made my sweater? Did you just want me to be warm? Or did you imagine me dead and you kneeling beside me, saying: this is Harry Peglar, able-bodied seaman, my love. I’d recognize that knitting anywhere._

* * *

John spends most of the day slipping in and out of consciousness. At times, he tries talking to Harry in soft tones, though Harry ends up talking more. John’s thoughts are few and far between, slipping out of his hands as quickly as they appear. Harry can see him getting exhausted whenever he tries to reach for them, so he takes to cupping his cheek when he does, stroking his beard until he falls asleep.

He looks peaceful, then. Not in pain. Harry kisses his knuckles; traces his tattoo with numb fingers. The thought comes, unbidden, _I’ll miss you soon, I miss you now_ , and he’s glad that John is asleep so that he doesn’t see Harry weeping.

* * *

He and John had curled up together after Carnivale. It was the first time that Harry had been _too_ warm during the expedition as he ran from the fire, losing John in the crowd. Laying in John’s bed, their feet dangling past the edge, Harry ran his still-trembling fingers over John’s own sweater - a dark blue design of purl and cable stitches, several years old now, the darning obvious in the more threadbare places.

Harry had given it to him as a gift before one of his voyages on _Wanderer_. It hadn’t been a surprise, as Harry worked on it almost everyday and they only had the one room in London. John was touched all the same. “Something to remember me by,” he’d said, as John held the sweater in his hands like it was fine silk. “And to keep you warm, when I can’t do that myself.”

He hoped it would keep John warm, now, as they prepared to leave the ships for good.

* * *

“I was right,” says John, in a brief moment of lucidity. He’s smiling. “You’re going to outlive me.”

Harry had been angry during that argument, trying to get John to understand, to _listen_. He’d been dying faster, then. He still is. His thoughts come and go from him like smoke, just like John’s have been as of late. He aches down to his bones, his marrow. His gums are bleeding.

John Bridgens is cold and Harry Peglar is warm. They’re both dying; John’s just leaving him faster. Harry is going to outlive John, but he can taste copper on his tongue and thinks, _Not for much longer_.

**Author's Note:**

> The thing about sweaters being used to identify drowned sailors is based on a myth about [Aran jumpers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aran_jumper), which is pretty interesting if anyone's interested in that sort of thing.
> 
> I'm on tumblr at [diydumpsterdiving](https://diydumpsterdiving.tumblr.com/).


End file.
